Tomix track cleaner car? Any good? Kato equivalent?

[Bigdog]

Stick to the good old brush or get the track cleaner?

[cteno4]

It does a good job vacuuming the track of puzz and some particulate matter. I also put a neodymium magnet under mine as I have found it pick up a bummer of little metal bits that somehow make its way onto the track. Puzz and dust will continually rain down on the layout and it will get sucked into gears in the trucks of your engines so best to try to suck as much off the layout as possible. You can get a micro vacuum hose to go at track but they can suck too much at times and have to be careful swinging the hose around the layout. I put a pice of nylon stocking across the joint between the micro hose and vacuum hose so if I accidentally suck up a scenery part of figure I can retrieve it. On buildings I will use a very fine make up brush and the micro vacuum hose to sort of dust the structure but try to suck up the dust removed so it just doesn’t deposit elsewhere on the layout.
 

I’ve never used the Tomix car for the buffing or the cleaning fluid distribution. For that I’ve use the old centerline roller car as it has the best action to clean.

 

but these days for the actual track cleaning I’m totally to just rag and wd40 contact cleaner. Once things are cleaned well a few times the black gunk goes away (see this topic).

 

cheers,

 

jeff

[Bigdog]

Thanks a lot Jeff. I don’t think I will shell out the 80$ for it. I will also try wd40.

[cteno4]

yeah it’s sort of a luxury. Simple little usb charging hand vacuum is pretty good for this kind of dusting of track and even structures. Anything precious sucked up is right there in the chamber. This is the micro hose kit you can attach to your house vacuum.
 

So far the contact cleaner has worked well the more you use it the less black gunk. Opposite happens with other cleaners like isopropanol where the more you use the more it promotes the microarcing and more black gunk. 
 

make sure you use wd40 contact cleaner, not regular wd40 lubricant.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[bc6]

I like my Tomix track cleaner it really sucks (sorry) it's a great piece of kit. However I don't like it's abrasive options as I think it damages the track. I like the CMX cleaner but I'd rather spend $80 on a locomotive than something that isn't self propelled. 

[Bigdog]

Do you have the CMX track cleaner? If you do could u leave a honest review because it’s a lot more expensive compared to the Tomix one and I don’t think I would spend that kind of money unless it’s really good

[cteno4]

I don’t have the cmx car, but I do have a couple of old pad style tank cleaner cars in addition to the centerline roller. One is an old european one lime 40+ years old and the other I Japanese that sort of drags it’s wiper. I’ve never found them great like the Tomix in being really even in delivering cleaning fluid. They also can get their pads stuck on some Unitrak joints that are not perfectly flat (this happens now and then). The rolling centerline car with a strip of handiwipe on it with cleaning fluid on it seemed to be gentler on the spread of fluid, the rolling action seemed to pull up a lot of gunk, and it never got stuck. Downside is I think they have been out of production for quite a while.

 

frankly since starting to use the contact cleaner, cleanings on Ttrak have gotten fewer and fewer, so the pain of doing them digitally (ie manually with finger and a rag) is greatly reduced and the desire to automate it with a cleaning car much reduced. I like the digital method as well as I do shirt chinks of track at a time and keep looking at the rag to see how clean or dirty it was and let’s me gauge how dirty the track is. It has been fun lately to see less and less on the rags with the wd40 contact cleaner. It seems to really stop the black gunk metal oxide loop that we had using isopropanol in the past.

 

dust and schmutz on the tracks will always be happening and will eventually get sucked into the truck gears. I’ve cleaned many a loco over the decades that has sucked up a ton of dust, fuzz, grit, etc and all mixed with lubricant into quite a mess.

 

jeff